Gallery: Chaffetz met with anger and contempt during town hall meeting [5 Images] Click any image to expand.

By Cassie Goff
| cassie@mycityjournals.com

Brighton High School’s auditorium was at
capacity on Thursday, Feb. 9 for a town
hall meeting
with Rep. Jason Chaffetz. The event was scheduled from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., but
residents started lining up at the front of the school around 3 p.m.
By the time the town hall
began, the auditorium held approximately 1,000 screaming residents while over 1,000 more chanted outside the doors
in protest.

Chants from the groups protesting outside
included, “vote him out, “keep your hands off our lands,” “do your job,”
“investigate Trump,” “you work for us,” “keep it public,” “impeach 45,” and an
echo chant where the first group yelled, “show/tell us what democracy looks
like” while the second group replied, “this is what democracy looks like.”

Inside the auditorium, Chaffetz stepped
on stage and was met with chanting, booing and screaming from the audience.

“Thank you for being here,” he began. “I
do believe as a representative, a part of my role and responsibility is to
stand, and to listen, and to hear, and to have a public dialogue. That’s what
this is about.”

Chaffetz began his address by
mentioning President Donald Trump. Those three words were all it took to make
the crowd pipe up again. Chaffetz then called on an attendee to ask a question,
who brought up the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Before he answered, Chaffetz noticed
some signs in the audience and asked what they were. In response, he was screamed
and booed at for not answering the question right away. One woman even rushed
toward the stage demanding that he give an
answer.

Chaffetz began to answer the question
by saying he does enjoy wildlife and
public lands. He then asked if people liked that he withdrew H.R. 621, a bill
that would have sold off public land across the U.S.,
including hundreds of thousands of acres in Utah.

“There
are some aspects of the bill I think you’d really like,” he said. “One of the
things that I helped champion was 300-plus
miles of the continuous wild receiving designation down Isolation Canyon. Did
you like that? Because that was still the Public Lands Intuitive.”

Chaffetz explained there is typically
only one BLM police officer for every one million acres of land. If ever the
BLM needs help, they contract with local sheriff offices.

“What this bill would do, is get rid of
the BLM enforcers and give that money and those assets and those responsibilities
to the local sheriffs,” Chaffetz said. “The net effects of that is more law
enforcement at the local level who can solve these problems and their crimes.
That’s my intention, to actually have more law enforcement so they can actually
enforce and protect public lands.”

This comment sparked booing from the
audience.

The next attendee Chaffetz called on
asked a question about Trump and his comments about Muslims. Chaffetz said he
thought the negative comments made by Trump about Muslims were
“absolutely wrong.” He said he then began to visit mosques in Salt
Lake County.

A Muslim community leader asked
Chaffetz about Trump’s travel ban, asking why Pakistan and Saudi Arabia weren’t
on the list. She then asked why Chaffetz doesn’t investigate the reasoning
behind the selection of banned countries.

“Honestly, I don’t know the answer to
that question. I really don’t,” Chaffetz said. “I know that the seven countries
that were on that list were identified largely by the Obama administration.” Audience
members began to chant “investigate
Trump.” Chaffetz responded saying he had to say something people weren’t going
to like.

“You want to hear this. The president,
under the law, is exempt from the conflict
of interest
laws,” Chaffetz
said. “If you’re going to run for president,
you should have to release your tax returns. I’m of the same opinion.”

Chaffetz then called on another
attendee for a question. Her name was Chelsie Acosta and she introduced herself
as a teacher. She discussed how her classroom has many diversity students,
including LGBTQ and Muslims students.

“What am I supposed to say to my
students? What am I supposed to tell them about where this country got to today?”
Acosta said.

Chaffetz thanked Acosta for touching
the lives of children.

“I do believe that the messages the
kids are seeing on television, the disparity on television is wrong,” Chaffetz
said. “I’m trying to be here to help. I don’t pretend that you’re Republican; I
don’t pretend that you vote for me, but it’s important for us to have this dialogue.”

As the conversation about immigrants
continued, many attendees began shouting about Trump’s proposed wall.

“As far as the wall, I don’t care how
big, far and wide the wall is, if you don’t fix legal immigration, you never
solve this problem,” said Chaffetz.

As he concluded the answer to the
proposed question, Chaffetz called on another attendee standing in the audience
for her question.

Another attendee told
a story about how she survived cancer with the help of yearly screenings at
Planned Parenthood.

“Sir, will you please explain to me why
you are trying to take that vital health provider away from women like me,
especially in light of the new reports that indicate that community health
centers will not be able to fill the gaps with Planned Parenthood closed?” she
asked.Chaffetz thanked the woman for her
sincerity but said she’s going to disagree with his opinion on Planned
Parenthood.

“My concern is to give that
organization federal tax-payer
dollars, when we have so many in our community who disagree with that. There
are a lot of people and a lot of money and a lot of services that can be
offered through these community health,” Chaffetz said.

Many protests from the audience
erupted. Chaffetz tried to explain what he thought the better use of that money
would be but he was interrupted by many protests, so he turned
his attention to the students in the front row.

“To the young people that are here up
front, thanks for being here. You better get a lot of extra credit for this.
You are our future. We want and need young people to be here and be involved and
be engaged,” Chaffetz said.

Chaffetz called on another attendee who
identified herself as a retired teacher.

“I rarely had a discipline problem
because I would draw a line in the sand at the very beginning of the year and
say ‘pass this line and this is the consequence.’ For the president
of the United States, the consequence is impeachment. What I want to know, Representative, is: what is your line in the sand?” she
asked.

Her question was reinforced with a
whole auditorium of cheers.

Chaffetz said his line in the sand is
the law.

“Some of the accusations towards the president
that I have heard don’t step over the line of the law,” he said. “The line is
the law. It’s not a Jason Chaffetz line. It’s the law of the land.”

Hannah Bradshaw followed with her own question. “What are you doing to
help protect our water and air for our generations? Do you believe in science?
Because I do.”

Chaffetz stretched out his arm for the
young lady to shake his hand before she returned to her seat.

“We have a major problem here, in
particular, Salt Lake Valley, with the inversion,” said Chaffetz. “We have to
make sure that we are being responsible. One of the things we are going to have
to do in our state, is look at how to deal with transportation.”

Chaffetz
was then asked to define tribal sovereignty.

“That
is a difficult, difficult question. If you recall, this Bears Ears mining is
not on the Navajo Nation. You got about 3 percent
of the Navajo Nation,” Chaffetz began, but
was not able to finish because of the various protests.

Chaffetz walked off stage around 8:20
p.m. Many of the event headlines stated that the meeting would go until 9 p.m.,
so many attendees were very upset.

The town
hall meeting
was originally scheduled at Cottonwood Heights City Hall, but because of the
size of the anticipated crowd, it was moved to the Brighton High School
auditorium.

“We understood the town hall was
scheduled for an hour,” said Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore. “The
congressman remained for an hour and 20 minutes. He did not, based on our
understanding, cut the event short.”